Detroit Financial District
The Detroit Financial District is a United States historic district in downtown Detroit, Michigan. The district was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on December 14, 2009, and was announced as the featured listing in the National Park Service's weekly list of December 24, 2009.
It includes 33 buildings, two sites, and one other object that are deemed to be contributing to the historic character of the district, and also three non-contributing buildings.
The American Institute of Architects describes Detroit's Financial District as "one of the city's highest concentrations of quality commercial architecture". According to the National Park Service:
From the 1850s to the 1970s the Financial District in downtown Detroit was the financial and office heart of the city, and it stills retains an important banking and office presence today. Banks began to locate along Jefferson Avenue in the Griswold and Shelby streets area in the 1830s. Substantial office buildings, often containing banks in their street levels, began to line Griswold in the 1850s. Detroit's massive early twentieth-century auto industry-related growth and economic boom resulted in large-scale redevelopment of the area between 1900 and 1930, and another wave of development took place in the 1950s and early 1960s. The Financial District continues today to be an important financial and office district in Detroit.
In the new millennium, the 47-story Penobscot Building stands at the center of the district as a state of the art class-A office tower and serves as a hub for the city's wireless Internet zone and fiber-optic communication network. Other major class-A office renovations include the Chrysler House and the Guardian Building, a National Historic Landmark. The Financial District is served by the Detroit People Mover and QLine light rail. Viewed from the International Riverfront, the district is bordered on the left by the 150 West Jefferson skyscraper which replaced the Detroit Stock Exchange Building and on the right by the One Woodward Avenue skyscraper.
History
Old Detroit: Before 1830
What is now the Detroit Financial District was the site of the construction of the first building in Detroit, Ste. Anne's Catholic Church, constructed in 1701 by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac. Ste. Anne's stood at the southern edge of the district, just west of the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Griswold Streets, where the Standard Savings & Loan Building is today. A stockade, later known as Fort Detroit, was constructed around the church and southward. Portions of the fort, as well as the church and other buildings, were destroyed and rebuilt multiple times during the next few decades. By the time the fort was surrendered to British forces in 1760, it encompassed an area stretching from the present Griswold Street to west of Shelby Street, and from south or Larned Street to a block south of Jefferson Avenue. In the 1770s the fort was again extended, encompassing the entire area from the Detroit River to Larned Street, and from Griswold Street west to Cass Avenue.In 1778, the British military commander decided that Fort Detroit was too difficult to defend, and construction on a second fort to the north began. This fort, known as Fort Lernoult, was centered in the northern section of what is now the Detroit Financial District, covering the area between Fort Street and Lafayette Street, and from Griswold street west to Washington Avenue. The southern stockade was extended from the river to the new fort, enclosing nearly all the Financial District.
However, the land north of what now is Larned Street was low and marshy, and most buildings were located south of that line. In 1805, a devastating fire swept through the village of Detroit, destroying all but one structure. After the fire, Detroit was replatted, establishing the main avenues of Jefferson and Woodward. Some residents were awarded lots south of Fort Shelby and north of Jefferson in what is now financial district, and built homes there. Fort Shelby was controlled by the British until 1813, when it was abandoned and taken over by American forces. However, Fort Shelby had been deteriorating, and in 1824, the federal government ceded the southern section of the grounds to the city. In 1826, troops left the fort, and the remainder of the fort and grounds were given to the city; the next year Fort Shelby was demolished and streets platted in the pattern that remains today. In addition, the marshy section north of Larned was drained by rerouting and deepening the River Savoyard.
Early settlement: 1830 to 1860
Beginning in the 1830s, the financial institutions of Detroit began to locate along West Jefferson, on the southern edge of what is now the Financial District, while the remainder of the district developed into a primarily residential area as the streets in the area were slowly opened and graded. The first bank located along west Jefferson was the Bank of Michigan, which built its headquarters on the south side of Jefferson near Woodward in 1831, and five years later built another structure at Jefferson and Griswold. The 1830s and 40s brought more banks along Jefferson near Griswold, including the Farmer's and Mechanic's Bank, National Insurance Bank, Michigan State Bank, the Bank of St. Clair, and the Peninsular Bank.Other commercial establishments, including the offices of the Detroit Free Press, occupied the area along Jefferson near Griswold and the lots immediately north thereof. By the 1850s, commercial and banking interests had pushed northward to line the first few blocks of Griswold. In 1858, a Federal Building was constructed on the corner of Griswold and Larned, spurring the construction of substantial office buildings in the surrounding area along Griswold.
Rise of commercialism: 1860 to 1900
Many of the office buildings constructed near the 1858 Federal Building housed at least one bank on the first floor, and by 1884, historian Silas Farmer called Griswold "the Wall Street of Detroit". In 1899, 22 of the 23 banks in Detroit were located in what is now the Financial District—20 of them on Griswold alone.Commercial and banking buildings spread north and west from the Griswold area. Fort Street east of Shelby had turned commercial by the 1870s; the section of Fort Street west of Shelby remained residential until the 1890s when a new Federal Building was constructed in the area.
Modern Detroit: After 1900
The Financial District underwent a dramatic transformation at the beginning of the twentieth century, heralded by the arrival of Detroit's first skyscraper, the Hammond Building in 1889; Chase Tower now stands on this site. In 1905, the thirteen-story original Penobscot Building was constructed on Fort Street, followed by the nearby eighteen-story Ford Building in 1907 and the 23-story Dime Building in 1913. In the 1920s, even larger skyscrapers invaded, culminating in the 40-story Guardian Building and 48-story Greater Penobscot Building, both built in 1927–29. When completed in 1928, the Penobscot became the world's eighth-tallest building and the tallest outside of New York and Chicago. It was the city's tallest from 1928 to 1977. The Penobscot stands at the center of the Detroit Financial District.The Great Depression halted the construction of buildings in the Financial District, and substantial new construction wasn't undertaken again until the late 1940s with the construction of the annex to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Detroit Branch Building. This was followed in 1959 by a new National Bank of Detroit Building, and in the early 1960s by the Michigan Consolidated Gas Company Building and the Detroit Bank and Trust Tower.
Financial District
There are 36 buildings within the Financial District, 33 of which are contributing properties. The buildings within the district were designed by a suite of notable architects and architectural firms, including D. H. Burnham & Company; Donaldson and Meier; Albert Kahn Associates; McKim, Mead, and White; Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls ; and Minoru Yamasaki. The Financial District is flanked by other skyscrapers in Downtown Detroit, including One Detroit Center and the Renaissance Center skyscrapers.Four of the contributing properties in this district were previously individually listed on the National Register. These include the Union Trust Building, an Art Deco–style building and a U.S. National Historic Landmark, the State Savings Bank Building, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Detroit Branch Building, and the Vinton Building. Other significant properties in the district include the 1927 Greater Penobscot Building, tallest in the district at 47 stories, the 1959 International Style National Bank of Detroit Building, the 1920 First National Building, the 1925 Buhl Building, the 1909 Ford Building, the 1912 Chrysler House, and the 1925 Detroit Free Press Building.
Eighteen of these buildings initially housed banks or financial institutions; many of the remainder were used for office space.
The buildings below are listed in rough geographic order beginning from the southeast corner of the district and proceeding northwest.
One Woodward Avenue (1962)
The One Woodward Avenue Building is a 32-story, flat-roofed skyscraper with a steel frame. It was built in 1960–62, and designed by Minoru Yamasaki and Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls; the building was apparently a model for Yamasaki's later work of the World Trade Center in New York. The building rests on a platform, approached via entrance staircases, with a reflecting pool and tall glass-enclosed lobby emphasizing the airy lightness. White concrete panels hold the hexagonal windows in place. The three-story glass panels were the tallest ever installed at the time.The bronze ballerina in front of the building is by Giacomo Manzù.